DrupalCamp Site Visit to USC at 1pm on November 20, 2012

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christefano's picture
Start: 
2012-11-20 13:00 - 15:00 America/Los_Angeles
Event type: 
User group meeting

With Drupal Design Camp LA now behind us, we've planned a site visit to University of Southern California (USC) on November 20, 2012, at 1pm, to determine if it will work as a venue for a DrupalCamp we're planning in early 2013. In the tradition of several other site visits that we've gone on, this visit is open to everyone and is an excellent opportunity for anyone who's interested in starting to help organize this event.

After we finish the tour, we'll either head back to Droplabs to talk or go straight to the Downtown Los Angeles Drupal Meetup that's scheduled for the same evening.

Please sign up at http://groups.drupal.org/node/266733#signup or post a comment at http://groups.drupal.org/node/266733#comments if you're interested in joining us as we tour the facilities. Those who sign up will be on this site visit's mailing list. We'll also send you our phone number and any last-minute details if there are any.

What to Bring

Bring a camera if you have one. This is a walking tour and bringing a laptop, power cables, etc. is not necessary.

Location and Directions

   Ronald Tutor Campus Center
   3607 Trousdale Parkway
   Los Angeles, CA 90089

Parking

Parking is available along Vermont or any of the other streets surrounding campus (since its in the center of campus it'll be about a 5-10 min walk from anywhere you park). There are parking structures too but usually pretty expensive.

Public Transportation

USC is on the Expo Park / USC Station stop on the Metro Expo Line.

Carpooling

Several of us are meeting beforehand at Droplabs, the venue of Drupal Design Camp LA 2012 and countless other Drupal meetups and activities. You are welcome to meet us no later than 12:30pm and carpool from Droplabs (where parking is free) or at 1pm on the USC campus.

If carpooling, meet us at Droplabs promptly at 12:30pm:

   Droplabs
   651 Clover St.
   Los Angeles, CA 90031

Comments

I'll be taking the train in

Techivist's picture

I'll be taking the train in so meet y'all there. Btw, we meeting at the Campus Center (cuz it has several entrances) or should we all meet in front of the Tommy Trojan statue (which is 15 seconds away) @1pm?

Miguel Hernandez - www.migshouse.com
Founder & CEO - The OpenMindz Group
Writer- Linux Journal & TechZulu

Meeting at the Tommy Trojan

christefano's picture

Meeting at the Tommy Trojan statue works for me. Good call.

I haven't been keeping up

patrickfgoddard's picture

I haven't been keeping up with groups, but DCLA is not at UCI this year? I really liked UCI. Not available there anymore? I really liked camp there this year.

This isn't for DCLA. This

christefano's picture

This isn't for DCLA. This site visit is to evaluate USC as a venue for a yet-unnamed DrupalCamp that highlights both the city of Los Angeles and its exceptional Drupal community.

When looking for a venue for Drupal Design Camp LA, the DDCLA organizing team heard from USC that they were interested in hosting a DrupalCamp but not within the time frame we were looking for. Although last month's Drupal Design Camp LA was at a different venue, we don't see a good reason to pass up a good venue!

just a quick reminder that

christefano's picture

just a quick reminder that this site visit is tomorrow, Tuesday, November 20th! We're meeting at 1pm at the Tommy Trojan statue, which is about 20 paces from the Ronald Tutor Campus Center.

If anyone wants to carpool together, you're welcome to take public transportation to Droplabs or drive there and leave your car. A group of us will be heading to USC from Droplabs at 12:30pm.

After the site visit, we'll go back to Droplabs or to a nearby cafe or restaurant and chat about the venues we've been shown.

Our DrupalCamp site visit was

christefano's picture

Our DrupalCamp site visit was an unexpectedly enormous success. USC's student group representative showed us (nodiac and myself) around and we saw several spaces. I was impressed with the venue and its facilities and was won over by the gracious support of Dru, our guide who took time out of his schedule to show us around.

The buildings we saw were the Ronald Tutor Campus Center, Taper Hall of the Humanities and a large ballroom under the student center that can accommodate 1000 people (indeed, President Barak Obama just had a fundraiser there).

Later in the evening, a group of us discussed the details (see below) at the Downtown Drupal meetup at Sensis and the Drupal After Dark afterward. Here are the details I remember. If anyone remembers other details I missed, please add them in a comment below.

Good news:

  • Tons of parking on campus ($10 a day)
  • Nearby hotels include the Raddison and Vagabond Inn and are a short walk away
  • The Taper Hall building (also known as THH) in particular has the ideal combination of auditoriums, rooms for break out sessions and spaces for registration and sponsors' booths
  • The above rooms are FREE because we're aligning with a student group
  • There's a food court on campus, as well as coffee shops and a bar for an after party
  • Public transportation options abound (including a DASH that runs from Union Station, Droplabs, etc.)
  • We've been invited to produce a Drupal event on campus in order to raise awareness of Drupal and get more students involved

Not so good news:

  • If we want the ballroom, costs go up significantly (and cell phones don't work well in that space)
  • Parking off campus may be undesirable due to distance from the event (and possibly safety concerns related to the surrounding neighborhood)
  • The ACM student group is having elections soon and our current representative will not hold the same position next year (he's assured us, though, that he knows everyone who is and will be in the student group and that he'll still be involved)

All in all, my sense is that we don't need the ballroom and that the issues of on campus parking and turnover in the student group are either avoidable or manageable.

Next steps:

Our next planning meeting is in about 2 weeks and will be on December 4th. We'll be identifying successes and challenges from the last camp we organized, discussing the dates, choosing the name, size and scope for the event and begin booking the rooms.

For now we're running with the name GLADCamp (short for Greater Los Angeles Area Drupal Camp). Thanks for the name, James! If anyone wants to join the fun, check out the GLADCamp group at http://groups.drupal.org/gladcamp and click the "Join" link.

Off campus parking

vmi's picture

To your noted concerns re. off campus parking -
I was there recently and was told there is paid off campus parking nearby to handle overflow w/ shuttling so you wouldn't have to leave your car in the street and walk.

Do you remember where the off

christefano's picture

Do you remember where the off campus parking and shuttling is?

If you don't, this is definitely going on the list of questions for us to ask our contacts at USC.

Somewhere..

vmi's picture

Here's a link to a map for nearby parking. You can probably find more by scrolling around. They all seem to be near a bus route but not sure about operational hours etc.

Photos of the Taper building

nodiac's picture

Photos of the Taper building we visited are up on the Meetup.com group: http://www.meetup.com/DowntownDrupal/photos/11873892/

Kraken Digital Media & Technology
Founder
http://www.larks.la  
Droplabs
Robot Coordinator
http://droplabs.net  
Greater Los Angeles Drupal
Organizer, Dragonslayer
http://drupal.la &n